


All These Young Bodies Turn

by Blink_Blue



Category: The Magicians (TV)
Genre: Abusive Relationships, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Angst, Drug Abuse, Drug Withdrawal, Dubious Consent, Homophobic Language, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M, Rape/Non-con Elements, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-21
Updated: 2019-05-07
Packaged: 2020-01-23 02:16:47
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 12,792
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18540259
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Blink_Blue/pseuds/Blink_Blue
Summary: The afterlife isn't what Quentin hoped it would be. And it doesn't help that something or someone on Earth is calling him back. But returning isn't is as easy as it seems.Post S4 finale: Quentin finds the life that Eliot has made for himself without him. There's nothing good or magical about it.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I know I'm not the only one who will probably never be over the S4 finale. Writing this because it provides me with some bit of catharsis. My attempt to fix what canon broke for me.

Quentin’s brow furrows as he concentrates on the tip of the pencil scratching over the paper. He’s hunched over the table as the ideas in his head are translated to patterns and intricate designs. He’s creating a world of magic and fantasy in head and there’s nothing he loves more than getting lost in his own creativity.  

For Quentin, it’s just another day in the afterlife. Some would call it paradise. Well, really anything that’s not burning in hell for the rest of eternity could be considered paradise.

And he quickly learns that paradise is made up of memories and fantasy. The world shifts and morphs depending on his mood. Sometimes it’s places that he recognizes. Like the park that his parents would take him to when he was a child. Sometimes it’s Fillory, a world of immense wonders, so beautiful it could only have been created by a god. And then other times it’s a mix of different things and places he’s seen before, blended together in a perfect way to prevent boredom from sinking in. 

Like when he found his favorite Brooklyn cafe beneath the Rainbow Bridge. That was a strange sight to behold. 

He sees his father a lot. Sometimes they chat about the things they miss and the things they missed out on. He thinks about the people he left behind and hopes that one day he’ll see them again. Not too soon though. His new home is comfortable, peaceful, and quiet. He’s surrounded by his favorite books. In his free time he creates pages and pages of D&D campaigns, eagerly waiting for the moment he can bring the pages to life. 

And then Quentin remembers where he is. He scratches a finger behind his ear and the pencil drops to the table. He sighs and glances out the window. It’s gotten hard to fill the time. It took a while for him to realize what was wrong. 

Gorgeous light of the mid-afternoon sun streams through the open curtains. It paints the room with a pale golden light that reminds him Alice’s hair. He often finds himself thinking back on all his favorite memories of his life. Sometimes it’s Alice. Other times his thoughts feature a man with darker hair. 

He blinks and a sudden image of naked flesh writhing flashes across his eyes. He flinches and jumps, knocking the pencil off the table. He gives his head a shake to clear it. What the hell? He takes a shaky breath and then peers into his glass on the table, wondering if the amber liquid was anything other than whiskey. 

Quentin turns back to the intricately drawn tunnels across graph paper and tries to ignore what he saw. He doesn’t know what’s happening to him but he does know that something is building on the edge of his consciousness. Has been for a while now. He keeps seeing a very familiar, very handsome face. It draws something hopeful within him, a brilliant spark from an otherwise deep and lonely cave. 

He doesn’t have a clue what to make of it. 

He can’t really tell how long he’s been here. How long he’s been _dead,_ he reminds himself. He’s really got to get used to thinking about it like that. Time passes strangely in the afterlife, if it even passes at all. 

Quentin hums a song under his breath. Snippets of a memory flutter around him as he loses himself in the song and the work on the page. His retrieved pencil scratches across the surface of the paper, quick and with purpose. He’s feeling better now. There were a lot of ups and down during his time here—mostly ups. That’s what being at peace is supposed to be. No more mental illness, no more negativity, no more wishing for the sweet release of darkness because staying strong just took too much damn fight out of him. 

He’s happy. At least he thinks he is. Even now, it’s so hard to really know what “happy” is supposed to be. 

His mouth goes dry and a warm rush floods through his veins. He gasps as he falls to his side, falls _through_ the floor, and he’s feeling his body literally travel through worlds. The lights blur and blind and he blinks until it all stops spinning and everything refocuses before his eyes. He stumbles on his feet as the new world around him pulls him close. 

He doesn’t recognize where he is. But he recognizes _who_ he’s seeing. 

Quentin watches a man sleep. The body is naked under a lavish comforter that just barely covers his hips. Quentin’s eyes travel up the thin waist to the chest covered in sparse hair. Air sucks into his aching lungs when he sees the familiar face.  

“Eliot.”

With a rush of anxiety, Quentin takes a step closer. Something yearns deep inside him and his hand is reaching out, trembling and shaking when the world spins again. He’s screaming his name when Eliot fades out of his vision and everything tilts and morphs until he’s dropped unceremoniously on his ass into the chair he’d been sitting in before he left. 

The bright sunlight seems to dim as Quentin stares at the clean lines of the pages in front of him. Transfixed, he blinks but only sees Eliot’s sleeping face instead of the quest he’d mapped out in front of him. 

“What the hell?” He mutters quietly. He scowls down at the messy pages that he’d poured hours into. _“What the hell?”_

He looks around the empty room and sniffs. He hadn’t thought of Eliot in a while. It’s hard to remember him when the freshest memories are reminders of what they couldn’t have. He sees the pain on Eliot’s face, bathed in the light from the fire, and it _hurts._

It was too hard watching his best friend possessed by a monster intent on hurting the body he remembers worshipping like a king. The rejection hurt the most, and it hurt for a long time. But it eventually faded into numbness, like everything else. And the more time he spent on a different plane of existence the easier it became to accept that he never really got closure with Eliot. He never got to say how happy he was to see Eliot alive. Especially when there was a time he thought he’d lost him to the monster. 

Losing him twice wasn’t really something he had the capacity to accept. 

He’d already buried him once. 

“Curly Q?”

Quentin froze at the voice. “Hey, dad.” He hopes that his voice isn’t as shaky as it sounds to his ears. 

“You alright, son?”

“I think… I think something’s happening to me,” he admits. He looks around anxiously like the items around him might inspire some answers to his questions. He’s surrounded by his favorite things in the world, yet somehow, right now they bring him no comfort. 

He eventually settles for staring down at his hands. His fingers itch to perform some magic. Something lingers inside him, growing and exuding out of every pore of his body. This isn’t right. He hasn’t felt trepidation like this since he left Penny with a MetroCard out of the underworld in his hand. 

His father’s concerned face watches over him. 

“I um… I think there’s something I have to do,” Quentin says shakily, looking up. He sees his father’s eyebrows shoot up. “Maybe… something left undone? Unfinished?”

Understanding slowly dawns over his father’s face and there’s an aching sadness written all over it. And a little bit of pity as well. “You mean… on earth?” His father clarifies.

“Y-yeah,” Quentin stutters. “Look, I know this sounds crazy, but I think something is calling to me. Calling me back, or something. I swear—I swear I was just there. I saw someone—”

“Son, you know that’s not possible.”

“Why not?” Quentin asks, his voice harder than necessary. “I’ve traveled worlds before. Why is it so crazy to think that I have to go back to… to see someone important.”

“It doesn’t work like that here.” His father pulls out a chair and joins him at the table. “There’s no leaving or going back. This… this is the end. You’ve made it. You gotta leave all that behind, son.”    

Quentin lets out a slow breath. Like a flood, it all comes rushing back to him. The hesitation and the uncertainty, the anxiety of whether or not he made the right decision for the right reasons. And the people that he left behind, are they alright without him? Do they still think about him? He remembers all too well how _awful_ it felt when those elevator doors first opened… and he knew what he’d done. 

He thinks of Julia and wonders if she’s gotten her god powers back. Is she making the most of her gifts and using them to give people hope? More than anything, he wishes that she’s happy. Because she deserves it. 

And beautiful Alice. They’d been through so much together and he hopes that she remembers the good times they had rather than the bad. They had so many of both. 

Eliot. 

He needs to find his way back to him. To say _something_ to him. They never got their goodbye. 

“What if you’re wrong?” Quentin whispers. He shakes his head and his fists clench tightly in his lap. “What if I could go back? What if I found a way?”

“Quentin,” his father says softly. “You died, son. You died young, and it was the last thing I ever wanted for you.” He reaches over and carefully rests a hand on Quentin’s shoulder. He squeezes it tight. “I’m sorry, but… the afterlife is supposed to be about moving on. 

For the briefest moment, Quentin reconciles himself with his reality. He can be happy here. No—he _is_ happy here. He’s finally become someone who can tell the voices in his head to shut the hell up. He has fixed his goddamn broken brain and he can be happy because he deserves to be.  

He concedes. For a moment.  

But the ache is still here. Thrumming in his chest like a little, tiny seed that’s taken root. It grows and fills the contours of every cavity of his being. He can’t relax. This isn’t his heaven and he’ll certainly never find eternal peace like this. 

He gathers his papers haphazardly for a moment before abandoning them altogether. “I’m just—I’m gonna lay down for a bit,” he stutters before walking away rigidly. He feels his father’s pitying eyes on him as he goes.  

“Fuck,” Quentin curses once he’s alone behind closed doors. He leans against the solid wood behind him and heavily drops to the floor. He takes a slow breath and lets it calmly flow past his part lips. 

Would it be so bad to try? What’s the worst that could happen? It seems almost innocuous when he thinks about it. It’s not like he can die twice. 

He’s not a traveler. He can’t just think of a place in his head and be back there at a moment’s notice. But he has magic. And somehow… without even trying, he’s done this before. So he settles himself in, takes a few deep breaths, and uses every popper he’s learned to get absolutely nowhere. The lights in the room blink a few times but he stays in one place. Groaning in his frustration, he looks down at his useless hands and curses himself stupid. 

Maybe his dad was right. Maybe dead is just… dead.

The finality of it is incredibly disappointing. 

He closes his eyes and lets his mind wander to the last truly happy moment he can remember.  

_Peaches and plums, motherfucker._

His eyes fly open as he feels the door behind him give way to nothing. He’s falling through the fabric of reality and there’s nothing solid to keep him grounded. He’s just falling, falling, falling…  

_“Christopher, honey, do you have to go?”_

His legs feel like rubber and his stomach is churning so fast he thinks he might puke. But Quentin would recognize that voice anywhere. He looks around anxiously, trying to make out something real as his eyes slowly adjust to the new world. 

_“One of us has to pay the bills, darling.”_

He feels raw. Like jagged cracks have been ripped through his torso. Bitter and frustrated, he vaguely catalogues a stranger hovering over Eliot’s naked form. He makes out the long neck that he’d once spent a lifetime with his face buried against, lazily pressed more kisses into than he can count.

The world spins once more and the last thing he sees is a kiss between lovers, sweet like honey in the morning light and then he’s back. In his body and in his afterlife that he’s suddenly loathed to accept. 

What kind of peace is this?

He’s fucking lonely, he realizes. His favorite things in the world couldn’t replace the people that he left behind. He’s _angry._ And pissed off. He hasn’t felt this level of emotion towards anything in what feels like ages. It hits him like being pulled out of water for a lungful of fresh air.

He’s got to find a way back. More determined than ever, he casts. He thinks of Eliot, of the feeling of the other man’s warm palm against his neck, pulling him close. The smell of the other man fills his nostrils, pulled from the best of his best memories of their time together. 

He needs something to anchor himself to the mortal plane.  

He thinks of Alice and her soft skin. The way she breathed gently against his lips. That doesn’t work. 

He thinks Julia might be the easiest to find. Like she might hear his attempts and reach out a helping hand. After all, she’s experienced more miracles than most.  

He even tries to contact Margo. And gets nowhere for his troubles. 

As it turns out, Penny is the easiest to find. He doesn’t know how he does it. But he finds himself solid and corporeal, standing in front of a desk, staring down at his friend who looks like regular Joe, the corporate stooge in his monkey suit. 

“Penny?”

“Quentin?” Penny’s brows draw together. “What the hell are you doing here?”

“I—” Quentin blinks and looks around. He must be in the underworld. “Sorry, I… wasn’t expecting you.” 

Penny frowns. “Who the hell were you expecting?”

_Someone closer, maybe?_  

But he’s not an asshole so he doesn’t say it quite like that. 

“Just uh… someone… Hey, do you know how I can get back to the mortal plane?”

Penny forces an uncomfortable smile and looks at him like he’d just grown another head. “The mortal plane? You mean Earth? Dude, you’re dead. You can’t go there. How did you even get here?”

Quentin nods helplessly. “Yeah, I know. Dead, blah blah blah, I’ve heard this before. And I know it’s possible because I’ve been there already.”  

“You’ve been back on Earth?” Penny asks flatly.

“Yeah.”

Penny forces a laugh and looks away, choosing to shuffle some papers instead of meeting his friend’s eyes. 

“What?” Quentin demands.

“Nothing, it’s just… not supposed to be possible. You’re in the afterlife. It’s… kind of a one-way ticket, you know?”

“Well, it is possible. And no offense, but you know as well as I do that we’re kind of experts at the impossible. So why don’t you be a friend and tell me what I’m supposed to do to get back to our friends.” 

A screech fills the room and Penny slowly slides his chair back and stands. He carefully walks around the desk until he’s close enough to land a heavy hand on Quentin’s shoulder.  

“If you think I knew that, would I still be here?” Penny sighs softly and shakes his head. “You’re dead, Quentin. You’re not supposed to be able to travel between worlds. Hell, you’re not even a _traveler._ If you can go to Earth… that means you’re not at rest.”

Quentin blinks. He’s either oblivious or stupid for not caring. He shrugs his shoulders and chooses to look at an interesting spot of nothing on the spotless wall. “Okay, so what? So I’m not at rest. I’ll go to Earth, or Fillory! I’ll hang out with my friends until I figure out whatever it is that I’ve left undone, _so that I can rest!”_  

“Dude,” Penny’s voice is stern and Quentin does not need his judgment or his pity right now. 

“That’s not right,” Penny starts but Quentin’s stubbornness cuts him off early.

“I want to go back.”

“You can’t, dude. That’s the whole point. You had your chance to spill your secrets. You had your chance to say your goodbyes, to get your closure. That’s it. That’s all you get. Once you pass over, you’re supposed to be at rest. Find eternal happiness or peace or some bullshit like that.” 

“Well, I’m not!” Quentin raises his arms and forces a mirthless grin. “I thought I’d feel at peace. I thought I was ready to go, to leave them all behind. I thought I was supposed to feel _relief_. And for a while, I did. For a while, it was good… And then I just got this aching, gnawing, _grinding_ feeling in my gut that won’t leave me alone and that is not what eternal peace is supposed to feel like. _Something_ is wrong and I need to fix it, even if it is literally the last thing I ever do.”

A heavy moment passes between them. Quentin breathes heavily, it’s the only sound between them before Penny shakes his head and speaks again. “What’s it like?” He finally asks softly.

Quentin sighs. He looks away, having forgotten that his friend isn’t exactly fortunate enough to be in his position. “I hang out with my dad a lot,” he admits. “We don’t fight. Not like we used to. It’s nice.” He shakes his head and takes another heavy breath. “But something’s missing. Something’s not right. So please, tell me. How do I go back?”

“How _did_ you go back?” Penny counters. 

“I don’t know,” Quentin shrugs dumbly. “I don’t even think about it and then it’s like I’m just there. But the world isn’t solid, or… or maybe I’m not. Because it only lasts for seconds, and then I’m back.”

“Even if you do make it back there, you don’t belong.” Penny frowns. His brow furrows. “They’ll come after you.”

“Who will?”

“Someone,” Penny says cryptically. “To pull you back. Either that or your very being will turn into a spirit. Trapped between worlds. Even get malevolent, maybe. But that’s just my guess.” 

Quentin drops his gaze. “Look, something is going on and I don’t know what to do,” he whispers. “Please help me.”

“You got a good deal here,” Penny says carefully. “Believe me, when I say that you are one of the few.”

“Penny, you don’t get it,” Quentin grits out. “I feel like… something’s wrong. And I can’t shake this feeling that I’m supposed to go back and fix it. Someone needs my help and I can’t accept that… that this might be it for me.”

A moment passes and Quentin thinks for a second that Penny is going to tell him to fuck off. But then Penny lets out a coarse laugh and lands a slap against his arm. “That is so you, man. I got to admit, I’ve missed it.” They chuckle softly together and already Quentin is feeling better than he has in ages. 

“You know it’s dangerous, right?” Penny asks. 

“I’m a fucking magician,” Quentin says softly. “I’ll figure it out.” 

“Alright,” Penny nods and sighs. “Let me give you some advice then, if you’re intent on doing something stupid, like always. Focus on the person you want to see. Think of a time and a place… a memory maybe, that’s important to you.” 

“I’ve tried that already,” Quentin mutters. “So many times.” 

“Just… just imagine that you’re with them and see yourself there.”

Quentin hears what Penny leaves unsaid. Think of someone you love. 

“How many times have you done that with Kady?” Quentin asks softly.

“Too many,” Penny answers. “But I’m chained here. And you’re not. So you actually have a chance of pulling this off.”

A tremor of fear jolts through him and he nods. “Okay,” he says softly. “Let’s give this a try.”

It doesn’t come easy. It took more than a few tries. Certainly more than he’d like to admit. He’s casting and cursing and concentrating until he’s blue in the face. Until Penny is laughing hysterically at his frustration and he wants to scream at the injustice of the world to play such a cruel trick on him, dangling a piece of happiness just to leave him—   

And then everything cracks and fractures and he’s falling through the seams. It’s real this time. He’s screaming his throat raw, feeling like his very being is being splintered, until he finally lands on his feet, a soft plush carpet beneath him. 

He looks around. His shoulders are tense, prepared for anything. Adrenaline pounds through his veins, begging for a release. Where is he? 

Eliot stares back at him, a blank, unreadable expression on his face. 

Quentin breathes hard. He licks his lips as his gaze rushes across the other man’s face, taking him in like a parched man deprived of water in the desert.

“Hi,” Quentin says softly. He swallows painfully as his lips twist into a smile. “Can you see me?” He asks. 

The lamps around them bloom and brighten and the room is suddenly washed with light. He feels Eliot’s magic linger in the air between them. 

“I guess that’s a yes,” Quentin whispers. 

He doesn’t know exactly what reaction he’s expecting. But it’s certainly not for Eliot to start shaking with laughter. Loud, full-body shakes of it, rumbling through the room. Enough so that Quentin starts to feel furious and embarrassed. 

He remembers his own awful reaction when he was first told that Penny had died. He’s very familiar with inappropriate emotional responses to terrible, stressful situations, but now he’s getting in a mood. 

“Okay, stop laughing,” he demands at the other man’s hysterical laughter. “Eliot, stop! You’re kind of freaking me out.”

He gets another burst of laughter for his troubles. To make the situation even more unfair, he can’t stop thinking about how gorgeous Eliot looks. 

“Stop laughing!” 

The hysterical chortles finally fade into gasping wheezes. “What the fuck?” Eliot asks.

“Yeah,” Quentin says sternly. “I’m fucking here.” _You asshole._ And he’s about to give him a piece of his mind because he hasn’t seen him in god knows how long— 

But then the world spins on its side like some terrible acid trip and Quentin wants to shout to high heaven that he’s not supposed to leave right when he’s finally gotten the chance to speak to the man that he has _so much_ left to say to. But the world has vanished. And he’s gone. 

“Shit.” 

Everything shifts into focus and he finds himself on a familiar lake. “Goddamnit,” he mutters as he looks around. He knows this place. He goes fishing here with his dad sometimes. He eyes the small rowboat that sits on the shore. It’s nowhere that he’d known when he’d been alive. But it’s got a touch of Fillorian beauty combined with his father’s dream of peace. That’s how it made itself a part of their afterlife. 

It’s supposed to be peaceful and calming. But right now, Quentin feels like the universe is mocking him. 

He flexes his fingers to try again.  

He focuses on Eliot face. The things that he remembers about him. Those stupid vests that accentuated his thin waist, the cane he was loathed to use because it meant that he was getting old, the way Eliot would hold him in his arms, against his chest when he needed it most. And he never had to ask for it. Eliot always just… was.  

He focuses on those memories, those most precious to him. And he thinks about the words that he wants to say to him. So that they might both find some peace and closure. 

The world that he wants to be in slowly emerges around him. 

He hovers, hesitant, and finally glimpses a familiar face. He knows time must have passed because it’s light out now. Sunlight streams through the windows. The room is unfamiliar, it’s not where he saw Eliot before. He doesn’t know how much time has gone by. 

Eliot himself looks different. His hair is styled differently and he clearly needs a shave. Rarely, even in their lifetime together, had Quentin seen him with more than a few day’s of growth on his handsome face. 

How much fucking time had passed?

“You’re not real,” Eliot says to him.

“Yes, I’m fucking real, Eliot.”

Eliot looks him over carefully.

Quentin self-consciously shifts under his gaze. He feels awkward, small somehow. Though he really should be used to it under Eliot’s towering figure. His eyes shakily look away before he’s forced to confront exactly how close Eliot had gotten to him. 

Eliot doesn’t hesitate. He grabs a handful of his sweater in one hand and reaches the other around the back of Quentin’s neck and pulls him into a kiss. 

Eliot tastes like cigarettes. 

Quentin coughs into his mouth. The kiss is somehow nice despite how he can literally taste ash on his tongue.  

“What, um… what was that?” He gasps when he finally pulls away. His stomach squeezes like someone had closed a fist around his gut and he can’t help but stare at Eliot's mouth, despite how it was him that pulled away from it. 

He’d hoped for this, more times than he can remember. But the reality of it isn’t quite what he’d been expecting. He suddenly realizes that Eliot is wearing nothing more than a pair of tight boxer briefs and a very open silk robe. He averts his eyes before he gets any ideas. 

“I told myself that the next time I saw you, I’d be brave,” Eliot says softly. He brushes a gentle hand through Quentin’s loose hair, pulling it back from his forehead. “I didn’t think you’d be dead.”

“I’m—” _Not,_ is what he wants to say. But he can’t lie to Eliot. He doesn’t pull back from the touch. He lets his breath hit Eliot’s lips. Lets him decide for himself what that means. Because he’s here. And his hands are gripped tight around Eliot’s arms, squeezing to let him know that he’s real. 

Quentin sighs and feels better than he has for a long goddamn time. He smiles up at the other man, so exhausted and happy and relieved. His grin is almost smug when Eliot’s next words throw him off his guard. 

“Do you wanna fuck?”


	2. Chapter 2

“What?!”

Quentin’s brain has to actually take a minute to process what he’s heard. And he seriously considers it. It’s not like he has many opportunities in the afterlife, and it is _Eliot._ Except that his stomach seems to be doing somersaults after the journey and he doesn’t know if he has the mental capacity to stay corporeal while actually taking Eliot’s cock. 

It might not turn out so well. Quentin doesn’t need that kind of embarrassment right now.

He avoids the other man’s gaze and quickly shakes his head. 

“Eliot…” There’s so much that he wanted to say, but now that he’s here, he finds that he has no idea where to even begin. His focus is a still bit off kilter from the world hopping and then the kiss. It hits him that he might be taking too long to form a coherent sentence and by the time the words actually come together, Eliot might have gotten bored with him. 

But then Quentin looks up and sees no caution in Eliot’s eyes, no boredom or wary confusion… just fondness and love. It somehow makes all the anxiety in his chest dissipate. It's _so_ good to see him and not the monster that had taken so much time away from them. He didn’t even realize how much had been left unsaid. And the greatest irony is that he doesn’t quite know what to say now that they have another chance. 

“How are you?” He asks pathetically. 

“Oh, you know… same old. Hmm.” Eliot grins softly and runs a hand across Quentin’s chest and over his shoulder. He wants to feel him, _needs_ to feel him just to make sure his mind isn’t playing tricks. “Are you real?”

“I’m—I’m real,” Quentin says carefully. More real than ever. His shoulder’s not even wood anymore. 

“Good,” Eliot says softly. “Because sometimes I mix the wrong pills and I end up seeing… things that aren’t there.” He chuckles, waving his hand as he speaks. “Just want to be sure.”

Quentin frowns at the mention of pills and he looks around the room for the first time. 

He takes in the expensive looking furniture and the fancy decor around them. For a second, he thinks he might be back in Fillory. But it’s not the King’s chambers. Modern electronics scattered around the room tell him that he’s on earth. And from the view out the windows, it looks like an expensive loft apartment in the city. Manhattan, maybe. He’s smart enough to know what two laptops sitting on the coffee table means. He’s standing in the living room that Eliot shares with his lover. 

Something tugs painfully in his chest, and not for the first time, he feels regret. Sometimes it’s over how things ended for him. He was young, though sometimes it didn’t feel that way. There were still so many things in life that he wanted to do, to experience and accomplish. 

Sometimes he hates Eliot for turning him down. They could have been happy together, he _knows_ it. But somehow fifty years of proof of concept wasn’t enough for the other man.

So here they are now. 

Quentin shouldn’t be upset over _this_ , not now, not when he’s not even alive to be a prospect in Eliot’s life. Eliot was never really his, not in this timeline or any other. Eliot didn’t want him. It’s about damn time he got over it. And move on.  

“Why are you taking pills—” The words catch in his throat when his eyes land on the bag of white powder resting on the coffee table. Remnants of the white substance is spilled across the glass. He can see residual tracks of perfect little lines in parallel and he feels the blood freeze in his veins. Quentin stops mid-question and goes rigid. He looks up and sees what he didn’t before. How Eliot’s eyes are red around the rims and looking a little too bright. Something in his smile borders on manic.

He doesn’t look well. The sight of it makes Quentin feel sick.  

“Is that coke?” Quentin demands. “Are you snorting fucking coke now?”

Eliot chuckles and looks amused at his concern. “Q, I did cocaine long before I ever met you. Please calm down.”

Quentin gapes at him, stunned at how Eliot can be acting like they’re talking about the weather. The sickening horror of the situation is familiar in the most terrible way. He remembers seeing Eliot like this before. After Mike’s death, came the drugs and the pills and the constant, heavy drinking. He thought Eliot had put all of that behind him once they found Fillory. It terrified him how Eliot could put such dangerous things inside his body. It scared him how he just didn’t _care_. 

A chilling thought runs down his spine. Could Eliot be doing this because of him?

“So you don’t want to fuck?” Eliot sounds disappointed. And now he does look a little bored. He runs a hand lazily through his perfectly coiffed hair and watches Quentin with dark, hooded eyes in a way that makes him feel something deep in his gut. “What are you anyway?” He asks curiously. “A ghost? Are you an angel? I’ve always wanted to fuck an angel. Or be fucked by one.”

Quentin’s chest tightens. Something unpleasant twists in his stomach as Eliot quirks a brow at him. “I don’t know what I am,” he admits with uncertainty. He glances down at his open palms and clenches them into fists before releasing them, testing how his body feels in this world. He has no idea how long he can stay here. For all he knows, he could be whisked at any second.

“It’s really good to see you, Q.” Eliot’s voice is sweet like honey. “But you should probably go then.”

“What?”

Eliot glances away and Quentin takes the opportunity to carefully watch his face as his eyes look towards the door. “My boyfriend’s going to be back soon. And he really doesn’t like it when he catches me with other men.”

_“What?”_ Quentin reaches out without thinking and his hand goes straight through Eliot’s chest. He snatches it back like he’d been burned. 

Eliot watches curiously as Quentin focuses his mind, has to shove all other thoughts aside until he stops shaking and feels solid enough in the world again. 

Quentin’s breathing heavily when everything around him finally stops vibrating. A sickening sensation in his gut tells him that if he loses it, any second now he’ll be jumping worlds again. And this time, he might not be able to find his way back. “Wait, I—hang on,” he tries again. “I tried so hard just to get here, to find you, I… I even saw Penny,” he stutters. “And you want me to go?”

Eliot tilts his head to the side and gives him a peculiar look. “Penny twenty-three?”

“No! No, _our_ Penny, the _real_ Penny. The dead one,” Quentin adds quietly.

Eliot’s lips pull into a grin. “Oh Q, I’ve missed you,” he says softly. A few dark curls had fallen into his eyes and Quentin resists the urge to reach up and brush the soft strands back, maybe twist them around his fingertips. Eliot smiles like he can read his mind. His eyes are glittering and Quentin thinks, a wild thought in the back of his hazy mind, that he wants to stay with Eliot forever—would stay—if only Eliot promised to always look at him like that.   

Quentin shuffles awkwardly on his feet. He watches as Eliot slowly eases down onto the sofa. His robe falls open and Quentin can’t help but look. His cheeks flush red until his eyes land on a scar on the other man’s abdomen, old and jagged, an ugly blemish on his otherwise unmarred flesh.

“Shit, Eliot,” Quentin whispers. He remembers seeing the blood that poured out of that wound, how it spilled over Margo’s hands, and he thought, that’s _too_ much blood. 

Eliot looks down at the mark where Quentin’s eyes are fixed. “That’s what happens when you take an ax to the gut.”

“I’m so sorry.”

Eliot wrinkles his nose and frowns. “You’re literally dead. And you’re sorry I got left with a little scar?”

Yeah, he is. 

He thinks maybe he should have been there afterward. As Eliot recovered from his wounds, both physical and mental, from the monster. He can’t figure out why he wasn’t there. Why being there _with_ Eliot and making sure he was alright wasn’t more important to him, in the moment.

Now, Quentin looks at the hollowness in his eyes and feels sad. He sees how Eliot’s cheeks are sunken in and his naturally thin frame is practically skeletal. Eliot lays back on the couch looking like one of those picture-perfect models painted in eyeliner, face framed with messy curls, gorgeous to behold but underneath, hides a cautionary tale of drugs, abuse, and bulimia. 

“What did you mean, catches you with other men?” Quentin suddenly asks.

Eliot smiles softly at the question. “Come here,” he says in lieu of an answer, and he pats the spot on the sofa next to him. “Come sit, little King.”

Quentin rolls his eyes at the nickname but obliges. He slowly sits and prepares himself to fall through the material. He’s pleasantly surprised when he feels the leather, soft and tangible beneath him.

Eliot watches him for a moment before reaching over and cupping Quentin’s jaw in his hand. He smiles, soft and inviting, before he gently presses their lips together. 

Quentin leans into the kiss. It feels like his coordination is off, his fingers struggle to find something to grasp onto, the silk fabric of Eliot’s robe, Eliot’s jaw, _Eliot, Eliot, Eliot…_

He _feels_ him, and he feels so wonderfully real. More real than anything Quentin has experienced since he died. It feels too good, and with that comes the feeling that there’s something dangerous about what they’re doing. “Eliot,” he whispers against the other man’s lips. His fingers press against Eliot’s flesh, pushing him back. “Wait, um… what are we doing?”

“I was hoping I could change your mind.” Eliot slowly pulls away and gives him a lazy smile. He releases him and with a sinking sensation, Quentin realizes he doesn’t want Eliot to ever stop touching him.

“What are you doing here?” Eliot asks curiously. “You are dead, right? That’s real? My own little living nightmare that I can’t seem to wake out of…” 

“Yeah,” Quentin says softly, looking away. “I’m dead. But… I’m also back, somehow. I don’t know how, or for how long.”

“I do enjoy these little visits of yours,” Eliot says carefully. “Can you let me know if it’s going to be a regular thing?”

Instead of answering, Quentin turns and looks around the room. The furniture is modern and expensive-looking. The decor is exquisite. Everything he sees is tailored exactly to Eliot’s tastes. A fully stocked bar sits on the far side of the room. Quentin finds himself wishing that they were back in the Physical Kids’ cottage. 

He doesn’t really know how to answer Eliot’s question. 

“Can we just um… chill for a moment?”

“Okay,” Eliot eyes awkwardly flick around the room. “If you want to.”

Quentin nods. “I uh—I tried to find Julia, and Alice,” he starts. “I don’t know what any of this means, but I think I have a way back. And I think there must be a reason that I’m back.”

“And what reason is that?” Eliot asks flatly.

“I don’t know,” Quentin admits. “Alice is supposed to be running the library now, right? I have no idea where Julia is. But this has to mean something, doesn’t it? _Something_ or someone brought me back. There has to be a reason. My… soul isn’t at rest, which can only mean that there’s something left for me to do here. I just have to figure out what that is.”

The blank look on Eliot’s face kills him. He expected the other man to care, to offer comfort or suggestions or advice. Instead, he feels like he’s staring into the face of a stoned stranger that he doesn’t recognize. 

“What do you think?” Quentin asks pointedly. Eliot must know something, why else would he be the one that he connects to all the goddamn time. “Do you know where our friends are? Are they okay?”

Eliot’s eyes glaze and they drop, sheltered by his long lashes. “I don’t talk to them anymore,” he finally says softly.

Quentin's brain can't process that. “What do you mean? Are _you_ okay?!” He stares at Eliot in confused shock and it suddenly hits him that something is missing. Rather someone. “Wait, where the hell is Margo?”

Her name makes Eliot grin, but it’s lacking the life that Quentin aches to see in his friend. “Bambi’s off trying to save the world,” he says lightly. “Too busy saving the world to save me.”

“Don’t be so dramatic, Eliot.”

“Who says I’m being dramatic?”

Quentin leans forward, struggling to piece together what he’d missed since he’d been gone. He remembers Eliot’s broken face around the fire of his memorial. How utterly devastated he looked when he threw that peach into the fire. It was the end of _them._ And Quentin wanted them to have so much more. 

Eliot’s words echo in his head. _Life ain’t fair._ _Why in the high, holy fuck should death be any different?_ It had made him so angry at the time, but now, he thinks he gets it. 

He reaches out and curls his fingers slowly over Eliot’s wrist. His thumb sweeps feather-soft over the other man’s pulse point. After a moment, they both stare down at their hands and Quentin asks, “what’s going on with you?”

Eliot doesn’t answer, just watches motionless as Quentin’s fingers slowly entwine with his own. 

“Margo’s in Fillory,” he finally says softly. “You remember Fillory?”

“Of course I do, El.”

“She’s not a big fan of me right now.”

“What happened?”

Eliot looks away. “I did something bad. Really bad.” He doesn’t speak for a few moments and then he laughs mirthlessly. “Fillory saved me once,” he recalls fondly. His eyes are lost somewhere in the past, maybe to a time when they were kings. It seems like so long ago. 

“Why aren’t you there now?” 

“I couldn’t be there without you,” Eliot says honestly. “After you were gone, I… I kind of fell apart,” he admits. “And then I fucked up… Margo won’t speak to me and I just gave up on all of it. Fillory, magic, gods and monsters… I came back here and… tried to move on.” He swallows and looks back at Quentin’s face. “I can’t believe you’re really here, Q. This is cathartic in a way. Thank you.”

Any confusion that Quentin had over what’s become of Eliot’s life after him is overwhelmed by the part of his heart that still loves him. That part is brimming over with sorrow and hurt and an aching desire to _fix_ this _,_ because the more he looks, the more obvious it is that Eliot is not alright. 

He tugs on Eliot’s wrist. Wants to pull him close so that they can kiss again. He wants to feel him, to _taste_ him. The way his heart pounds when he hypes himself up to kiss Eliot Waugh is not unknown to him. He’s almost got enough courage to do it when he hears the sound of a key sliding into the lock of the front door.

They both turn their heads simultaneously as the door swings open. A man with dark hair and expensive taste in suits walks in. He pauses when his eyes land on Eliot and Quentin sitting on the sofa, their heads just a little too close together to be construed as anything other than an almost-kiss. 

Fuck, Quentin thinks. The guy is handsome _and_ rich. And he could totally kick Quentin’s ass. 

He carefully tugs his hand out of Eliot’s grip and leans away, hoping that the motion goes unnoticed. 

“Hey, honey,” Eliot says casually. “How was work?”

“It was a long day,” the newcomer says as he approaches. His eyes flick between the two men, not exactly cold, just sharp and borderline intimidating. “Who’s our little guest?”

“This is Quentin. He’s an old friend,” Eliot gestures lazily with his hand. “Q, this is my boyfriend, Chris. We live together.”

Quentin paints a smile across his face and hopes that it doesn’t look like a grimace. He awkwardly pulls himself to his feet and holds out his hand in greeting. 

The handshake is firm and confident as Quentin carefully takes stock. Eliot’s boyfriend is tall. Quentin has to look up to meet his eyes, just like he does with Eliot. He’s well-dressed, slim around the waist but still carries a decent amount of muscle. He has the build of someone who regularly goes to the gym and probably has a kale protein smoothie for breakfast every morning. He kind of looks like an investment banker’s son. 

Quentin squirms under his gaze and awkwardly turns to Eliot for assistance. 

Eliot, to his dickish credit, doesn’t bother trying to hide his amusement over Quentin’s discomfort. He raises an elegant eyebrow and smirks. 

“Um, it’s nice to meet you,” Quentin eventually stutters. 

“Quentin’s in town for a bit, right?”

“Y-yeah,” he quickly nods. “Not sure for how long.” He has no idea how permanent his situation is. 

“Do you mind if Quentin stays in the guest room while he’s here?”

“It’s no problem at all,” Chris says. He’s got a smile that Quentin doesn’t like. A bit fake, very haughty, and swimming in an air of ‘I’m better than you and I know it’.

Eliot apparently likes it though. 

“So I guess you’ll be staying for dinner.”

Quentin blinks. Can he even eat? “Of-of course, yeah, I would love to. If you guys would have me.” 

Eliot braces his hands on his knees and stands. “I’ll get dinner ready, babe.” He walks over and kisses the other man on the lips. 

Quentin doesn’t miss the way Chris’s hand curls around Eliot’s bare waist under his robe. He looks away before he gets caught staring. It catches him off-guard, how much it hurts seeing Eliot with another man. 

He thinks it’s probably that closure that they never got. 

Of course Eliot’s moved on. He was an idiot to think that Eliot would be moping and pining over him all this time. 

So Quentin is relegated to making small talk with Eliot’s boyfriend while he works busily in the kitchen, occasionally shouting over to be a part of the conversation. He gets asked a lot of questions that he stumbles his answers through. _How did they meet, what does he do for a living, how long has he known Eliot…_

A lifetime longer than you, Quentin thinks. But he bites his tongue before he insults the man in his own home.

_Where are your manners_ , he hears Eliot’s teasing voice in his head.  

Not long after, the entire apartment is filled with the delicious aroma of a miniature feast. Glazed salmon, stuffed pasta shells, and an appetizer that Quentin can’t pronounce. He has a pretty good idea how Eliot managed to single-handedly prepare a three-course meal in the same amount of time it’d take a regular person to put together a pot of spaghetti. 

He wonders if Chris knows about Eliot’s magic. Does he know all of Eliot’s eccentric quirks as well as Quentin does?

Eliot drinks a lot at dinner. Like six glasses of wine while Quentin sips his first in between his terrible and awkward attempts to keep up with the conversation. But he surprisingly manages to keep food and drink down. Eliot easily carries the conversation throughout the meal, animatedly gesturing with his fork as he regales tales of their “grad school adventures” to his boyfriend. 

Quentin tries not to notice when he excuses himself from the table halfway through the meal and returns a few minutes later with traces of white powder under his nose. 

If Chris is bothered by it, he doesn’t say a word. 

In the end, Quentin doesn’t even get the luxury of a _shot_ at a second chance, because it’s so blatantly obvious that Eliot and his new boyfriend are a real couple. With their own language and smiles and inside jokes. When Chris says something that makes Eliot throw his head back in laughter, Quentin has to physically fight to keep his food down. 

He watches them with his lips pressed tightly together, unable to tear his eyes away like he’s watching a goddamn train wreck in slow motion. He fumbles through the rest of the meal, trying to ignore the pain while wondering why he was called back from the afterlife to see _this._

The pain is like a constant jab in the gut. Chris leans over and places a hard hand on the back of Eliot’s neck, pulling him close for a kiss. The sight of it makes Quentin’s blood run cold in his veins. For a second, he loses his grip on reality and his hand literally becomes incorporeal. The glass of water he’d been holding falls to the ground, shattering to pieces. 

“Shit, I’m so sorry,” Quentin immediately drops to his knees with his dinner napkin to clean up the mess. He keeps apologizing rapidly and mumbles something about his clumsiness. Eliot chuckles but neither of them make a move to help. Quentin feels his face turn red as he tries not to watch the two of them out the corner of his eye. 

“It’s not a big deal,” Chris finally says. And then Quentin watches as he performs a familiar motion with his hand outstretched and before his very eyes, the shattered glass reforms perfectly in a matter of seconds.

“You… have magic,” Quentin states dumbly.

“You’re surprised.”

“No, I uh… um, Eliot didn’t mention that you were…” 

“A magician?”

That makes sense. Quentin blanches as Eliot leans over and whispers something in the other man’s ear. They chuckle together, probably over Quentin’s foible. Eliot swoons and the breathless, dizzied feeling that had been steadily growing over dinner magnifies ten-fold.

The worst part to swallow is how Chris can’t seem to keep his hands off of Eliot. The man is handsome, confident, and successful—everything that Quentin is not. And now he has the one thing that Quentin could never call his but wanted more than anything when he was alive.  

He curses the injustice of the universe. 

The rest of dinner continues without a hitch, though Quentin doesn’t feel like eating anymore. Soon their plates have been cleaned off. Eliot has gone out on the balcony for a smoke and Chris has disappeared somewhere in the apartment.

Quentin jumps on the opportunity to catch Eliot alone.

He finds Eliot outside, a cigarette dangling between his lips. The sun has set but warmth still lingers in the air around them, on its last vestiges. “Hey,” Quentin says quietly, as he slides the glass door shut behind him. “Can I have one of those?”

Eliot passes over the pack silently without sparing him a glance. His mellow demeanor is in sharp contrast to how upbeat and talkative he was at dinner. 

Quentin lights the cigarette and inhales deeply, letting the smoke fill his lungs. It feels different than he remembers. Muted somehow. But it still works to calm his nerves. He turns to Eliot and slowly studies his face. 

Some deep, dark, and possessive part of him wants to demand what Eliot is doing here. 

He thinks it’s goddamn unfair how gorgeous Eliot is, that he should look so good practically hanging off another man’s arm while Quentin has a post-life existential crisis. 

When he was still alive, the memories of their life together faded with each day that passed. But now, he sees them clear as day in his head. And he wonders how he could have ever forgotten the beauty of the life that they shared together. Fifty years they had with each other, and Eliot never left his side. There were a lot of good moments. But weirdly, it’s the bad ones that Quentin truly appreciates, because Eliot never abandoned him no matter how bad it got. There were days when his broken brain wouldn’t let him get out of bed. When Quentin would lash out, throw painful jabs with his words, thinking _today must be the day that Eliot finally grows tired of me._ Eliot proved him wrong every single time. 

Eliot will always be family to him. 

It hurt to know that Eliot didn’t want him when they had the chance to be together again. But he still remembers the warmth of the other man’s skin and the feeling of running his fingers through Eliot’s soft curls. And it’s so easy to pretend that they could find themselves there again. 

Maybe if he weren’t dead and Eliot wasn’t with another man, they could have their second chance. 

He’s a sucker for second chances.

“How are you,” Quentin asks softly. “And don’t give me some bullshit answer. How are you really?

“I think you already know the answer.” He turns his head slightly and Quentin tries not to gawk at the sight of him standing there in the makeshift halo of the balcony light. 

“What do you think of Chris?” Eliot asks casually.

Quentin swallows against the lump in his throat. “Honestly? He kind of seems like an ass.”

“I knew you’d say that,” Eliot chuckles.

For a moment, Quentin stares blankly at the lit end of his cigarette. “Is he okay with it? The drugs, I mean,” he clarifies as he takes a step closer. “Because you’re doing like… a lot of drugs.”

Eliot makes a noncommittal sound in the back of his throat.

“He’s just alright with you being high all the time?”

Eliot’s lips twitch. His eyes are cold and impossibly dark when they turn to look down at Quentin. “Why wouldn’t he be?” He asks with a shrug. “He’s the one who gets me the drugs.”

Quentin goes quiet for a moment. This is too close to the Eliot he knew so many years ago. The one that he wanted to help but was too much of a coward or just too fucked up from his own guilt to do anything for. The night they shared fueled by emotion magic is one that Quentin tried desperately to forget. Not because it was Eliot (and Margo), but because he also hurt someone that he cared so deeply for. 

“That’s kind of fucked up,” he finally says softly.

“I like it,” Eliot says, flicking his finished cigarette away before shoving his hands into the pockets of his robe. “I like being numb. And he’s more than happy to acquiesce.”

Quentin wants to reach out but he’s not sure if he has the right. “I’m worried about you,” he admits. “I hate that you’re a functioning alcoholic again. You don’t seem like yourself.”

Eliot says nothing. 

“Are you going to tell me what’s going on with you?”

“Are you going to leave again?” Eliot counters.

Quentin goes quiet for a moment. “I’m not really sure what I’m doing here,” he says honestly. His hand flickers for a second. He feels the familiar pull of losing his grip on this plane of existence. He furrows his brow in concentration until he’s fully solid. “Do you even want me here?” He whispers. “It’s kind of hard to tell with you. You’re with some guy and I don’t know how to… ” He doesn’t know how he fits into Eliot’s life anymore. And that sentiment is harder to put into words than he thought it’d be.

Eliot turns to him, eyes burning and he looks _so_ sad that Quentin doesn’t know what to make of it. “I miss you,” he says, like a confession, his voice is barely a whisper. “I don’t think I can do this. Seeing your face pop up every few weeks, I’m not sure whether I’m seeing things or just completely losing my fucking mind.” He chuckles dryly. “I’m seeing my dead lover. Maybe I am losing my mind.”

Quentin can’t help the grin that tugs at the corner of his lips, because Eliot calling him his lover is somehow the only part that he could focus on. Pathetic really, he tells himself. 

Any response he was formulating is interrupted by the glass door sliding open behind him. 

Chris pops his head out. “You done with your smoke?” He asks, his question clearly addressed to Eliot. He barely spares Quentin half a glance. “Come help me clean up in the kitchen.” 

Something tightens in Quentin’s chest. It doesn’t sound like a friendly request. 

Eliot turns to him. His eyes linger over Quentin and he smiles softly. “I’ll see you later, Q.” His voice is fond and sad, and a little bit resigned. It makes Quentin want to reach out and tell him not to go. 

But Chris is apparently waiting and a moment later, Quentin finds himself alone on the balcony. 

He stares through the glass, seeing clearly into the well-lit apartment. He watches the two men in the kitchen, standing close the way lovers do, touching and then kissing. He looks away. 

He misses this, he realizes. He misses being _close_ to someone. He misses Eliot. 

He was supposed to find peace in the afterlife, or some semblance of happiness. And maybe he did, but he still couldn’t shake the feeling of loneliness. Any piece of heaven that he could morph around him couldn’t change into the faces that he wanted to see. He still had some life to live. And now he realizes that he _wants_ to live that life. But it might be too late for him. 

He needs to tell Eliot. His eyes look up and they freeze, taking in the scene that he sees through the glass. 

He blinks dumbly, but the images don’t change. He realizes with a furious inhale, that Eliot and his boyfriend are fucking in the kitchen, in full view of Quentin’s eyes and anyone else who decides to look through their windows. 

The silk robe is gone, fallen to the floor probably. 

Chris is pressed flush against Eliot’s back, hands rough on his hips, fucking into him against one of their marble counters. Eliot’s head is tilted back against the other man’s shoulder, eyes closed and lips parted. Quentin stares at the sight for longer than he’d like to admit, his heart slowly sinking into his gut. 

The worst part of it is that he already knows exactly what Eliot looks and sounds like during sex. He can’t hear a sound through the glass but he sees enough that his brain fills in the gaps with dirty, filthy sounds of love-making in his head. Eliot’s face is scrunched in pleasure and Quentin gets every detail in high-fucking-definition. 

Chris’s hands slip around to the front of Eliot’s abdomen. Slowly, they inch lower and Quentin’s blood boils. He sees how Eliot’s body shakes from the thrusts from behind. The other man’s grip on him could only be described as possessive, and Quentin suddenly wonders if they know he’s watching. 

Did they want him to see this?

It feels like he can’t breathe. Quentin’s clenching his jaw so hard it had begun to ache. Jealousy washes over him like a cold sheet. 

He did not come here for this. He did not come here to see _this._

The tips of his fingers start to tingle, and the world begins to slide out of focus.

He’s still fueled by a white-hot rage when he wonders if Eliot will even miss him. 

He squeezes his eyes shut but the images of Eliot fucking another man are burned behind him. It’s the last thing he sees. 

And then he’s gone. 


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for suicidal thoughts, drug use and overdose. 
> 
> This chapter also digs briefly into Eliot's back story and childhood. I always had a feeling when I first saw 1x02 that Logan wasn't just a bully. And then I read an interview where Hale kind of suggested that Eliot's first murder might have been in retaliation to something sexual in nature. Anyway, that is touched upon here.

The first time Eliot got a crush on a boy, he was twelve years old. He didn’t really know what it meant. He just knew that he wanted to hold his hand and spend all his time with him, and maybe even kiss him the way grown-ups do in those old romantic movies that his mother was constantly watching. 

He casually brought it up with his brother once. Because that’s what a kid does when he’s confused, he goes to his big brother for help. Eric was four years older, a sophomore in high school, and he got to second base with Suzanne Niemans so he was clearly a fountain of knowledge. 

But Eric frowned when Eliot said that he wanted to kiss another boy. He stared at him like he’d grown a second head. “That’s disgusting, why the hell would you want to do that?” He probably didn’t mean to be cruel. But that doesn’t change the way Eliot closed in on himself at the hurtful words that came out of his brother’s mouth.

“Don’t joke about shit like that,” Eric told him. “You’ll earn yourself a beating and I can’t really say you won’t deserve it.”  

Eliot was a smart kid. He quickly learned that _whatever_ he was, it wasn’t a good thing. There was something wrong with him and it was something the world wouldn’t tolerate. He saw the way his father spewed hate speech about the liberal fags polluting the world. People like him weren’t allowed to be open and loud and confident. Instead, they were meant to be choked down, defeated, and smothered out of existence.  

So that’s what he tried to do. 

He was young and scared. And when there was even the slightest chance that the boy he liked might’ve liked him back, he lashed out with anger and violence. He thought he was protecting himself. But in hindsight, he was becoming the very thing that he learned to fear. 

His name was Taylor. And Taylor was his oldest, possibly his only friend. He was sweet and kind. And when puberty hit him, he matured into an awkward teen with boyish good looks. He never had a problem with who Eliot was. 

Hurting him was something Eliot never forgave himself for. Even if Taylor did. 

That was the first time he truly hated himself. It wouldn’t be the last.

They lived in a small town and rumors spread fast like wildfire. Rumors about weird, awkward boys who were a little _too_ close. With strange interests that didn’t include girls or sports or hanging out at one of the few establishments for rowdy youth: either the arcade or the bowling alley. 

High school was a different type of nightmare. Eliot had learned better than to be the center of attention. He was always a bit of a strange kid. His parents would say he had his head in the clouds. His bullies would beat him up and call him a queer. 

As if growing up wasn’t hard enough, on top of the awkward growth spurts, terrible haircuts, and crisis over his blossoming sexuality, he had to deal with Logan Kinear.  

They were in the same year at school. Eliot never really noticed him until one day, Logan got in his face, pushed him to ground, and called him a fairy. A crowd of their peers watched and snickered as Logan humiliated him with mockery and insults. The trauma sprouted that day and never really stopped growing.

Logan was loud and rambunctious. He was the type of kid who got terrible grades. Teachers would all say he had no future ahead of him. He never passed on the chance to push Eliot around. Physically, it was like he couldn’t keep his hands off of him. 

Eliot was skinny and quiet, a perfect target for bullies like Logan. Too weak and too scared to fight back or ask for help. Not that there was anyone who would have helped him. 

And the thing is, Logan always looked at him a little too long. Eliot would feel eyes on him from the other side of the room. More than once, he was cornered, humiliated, and taunted. “You like sucking cock?” Logan sneered at him. “Might as well, it’ll be the only thing you’ll ever be good for.” And he hit him again. Eliot limped away with fresh bruises and swollen eyes. 

It went on for months. 

Eliot never talked about what Logan did to him. Not even to Margo, though he suspects that she already knows. The worst, he remembers, was the sense of understanding of what was happening. This wasn’t a beating or a mockery or some public humiliation—those he was well familiar with.  

This was something different. 

This was a bigger boy pressing him against cold, hard brick behind the school. Bright blue eyes watching him with lust, even as his twisted lips called him a whore. The same hands that left him bloody and bruised so many times forced themselves down the front of his pants. Eliot’s throat clenched and he felt sick. Tears sprung to his eyes. He blinked hard but couldn’t drown out enough of his senses to block it all out.

Logan kissed him and it tasted like acid. 

Eliot went home that night and contemplated swallowing the bottle of painkillers in his parent’s medicine cabinet. He ended up crying himself to sleep instead.

A month later, Logan’s blood was splattered across gravel and the front of a yellow school bus. 

So on top of being a freak, he was now a killer and a murderer. 

That moment changed him. It nearly _broke_ him. And it would be years before Eliot decided to leave it all behind, to start over with a clean slate, and become someone he didn’t hate every time he had to look in the mirror. 

* * *

Chris slowly pulls back and shifts his weight so that he’s not lying completely on top of Eliot. His heavy breaths hit the other man’s cheek. Sex with Eliot can be a bit of a mindfuck, a multitudinal grabbag of lewd and lecherous acts. He never knows whether Eliot is going to suck his brain out through his cock or whip out a few magical pills that enable them to fuck each other’s brains out for literal hours. Either way, Eliot is hot and tight and unbelievably willing to let him do whatever the fuck he wants with him.

But lately, something has changed. There’s a marked shift in Eliot’s behavior. 

Eliot’s penchant for over self-medicating leaves him dazed and out of it. Most of the time when they fuck, he’s too high or drunk for his dick to be interested. And when Chris does manage to make him cum—like now—it’s with a twitch and a few quiet, breathy gasps, and then he lays there and waits for Chris to finish.   

Chris seethes in frustration and flops onto the bed beside him. “Was that good for you?” He growls.

Eliot slowly tilts his head to glance at him. He smiles, kind of hesitant. “It’s always good,” he says softly.

Their sex used to be hypnotic. Intoxicating. And Eliot never says _no_ to anything. He never says _no_ and he never says _stop_ and it really shouldn’t be as hot as it is, but now it leaves Chris feeling like an asshole. 

Chris stares at him for a moment before he reaches his hand to the other man’s jaw. He kisses Eliot with hard determination, strokes his tongue against his lips, slips it past them and finds his teeth. His fingers slide to Eliot’s neck. He puts his entire hand around his throat and _squeezes,_ keeping him in place. 

He waits for their little dance for dominance. But instead, Eliot goes still. He doesn’t fight, he doesn’t resist. He lays there, pliant and quiet. 

Not the reaction he’d been looking for. 

“Fuck,” Chris mutters and pulls himself away. “I hate when you’re like this.” 

Eliot’s not an idiot. He knows exactly what the other man is talking about. But he can’t bring himself to care and certainly not to change. So he figures playing dumb is his best option. This _thing_ between them is nice and easy, but Eliot's not naive enough to think that it might last. Chris is getting bored with him, if his behavior is any indication. In his experience, no one ever sticks around long. 

“Like what?” Eliot asks softly.

“Like some tweaked out fucking twink,” Chris spits, his voice rougher than usual. 

Eliot forces himself to look away. He rolls onto his back and stares blankly at the ceiling, uncharacteristically silent. His limbs feel weak and unsteady. He thinks that he wants to take a hot shower but can’t bring himself to move.

Chris’s dark eyes drill into him.   

The way he looks at Eliot is almost sweet. His eyes narrow, brows are furrowed like Eliot might suddenly shift demeanor and surprise him. The truth is that Chris makes him feel cared for. And that’s not something he’d experienced much of in his life. He would be laughing at himself, indulging in such domesticity if it wasn’t so goddamn appealing. 

Eliot closes his eyes and breathes out slowly through his nose.

Chris’s palm still lays against his stomach, warm and heavy. His fingers mix with drying semen. With a wave of his fingers, the mess is magically swept away. 

Eliot hates it when his partners treats him soft. Early in their relationship, it didn’t take long for Chris to take a hint, to realize that Eliot prefers it hard, prefers the rough drag of flesh on flesh. That there’s some sick, twisted side of him that wants the fucked up, abrasive treatment that leaves him moaning like a whore and begging for more.  

Or maybe he did. 

Eliot doesn’t know what he wants anymore. But when Chris slowly climbs off of him and off the bed, he breathes a soft sigh of relief, grateful to not be touch. Weirdly, his nerves feel ragged and a bit too sensitive. That might be from the pills. 

“Whatever,” Chris mutters, looking away. “You want dinner?” 

Eliot doesn’t respond. 

“All right, take-out it is then.”

Eliot’s gaze silently follows Chris’s bare back as he rises from the bed. And the thing is, typically he’s really bad at gauging how his partners feel—and that’s why he avoided relationships for so long. But the other man’s irritation is clear as day. He’s pissed and exasperated and sick of Eliot’s shit. 

Eliot swallows and tries not to feel bad. 

The reason they’re together is purely for convenience. Their relationship is transactional—equally beneficial to both parties involved. He’s not ignorant enough to believe that there’s any real love between them. 

The worst part is, Eliot knows that his best and possibly his only chance at love died with Quentin. And now, he tries with every fiber of his being, and every narcotic known to man and magician, to forget this. 

Chris helps with that. And at the end of the day, it’s still nice to be wanted.

“Did you ever find out what happened to your friend?” Chris suddenly asks, shaking him out of his thoughts. “From a few weeks ago? Weird name… Quentin?”

Eliot flinches. “No idea,” he says through gritted teeth.

Chris stares at him hard. “You’ve been different… since then. Don’t think I haven’t noticed,” he says quietly.

Eliot blinks blankly at the ceiling. “Why do you care?”

“I don’t,” Chris growls, so pained and frustrated that he suddenly can’t wait to get out of the damned room. “Just get your shit together.” He shakes his head as he gets dressed, too eager to leave. “I’ll call you when the food’s here.”

Eliot shudders once he’s alone. He takes a breath that too quickly turns into a ragged gasp. 

A moment later, he collapses in on himself, curling onto his side and forcing his eyes shut. He tries to remember a time when he wasn’t so goddamn _angry._ His eyes sting as he fights the tears that build within them. The sound that starts in his chest and ripples from his core, comes out in a choked breath. The first sob shakes his whole torso and he clamps a hand over his mouth, desperate to contain the sound. He fights to bury the grief and the anger. He’s been trying so long to figure out how to live with it, how to _control_ it. It’s got more power over him than the other way around. 

This is his default state when the drugs wear off. 

He chokes on another unsteady inhale, bites down on his lip hard enough that he nearly draws blood. His hands tremble as the magic inside him threatens to release without his permission. It happens too often, given the precarious amount of potent magic in the air. It latches onto his grief and sinks its claws into him. Ever since a reservoir of magic began flowing out of every mirror that mattered, he’s had trouble controlling his powers. 

It had gotten dangerous.

When he started seeing Quentin everywhere, he thought he was losing his mind. It was a symptom of loss or one of magic. Alternatively, it could have been the universe’s idea of cruel and poetic justice. 

For him to realize that what he truly wants is to be with Quentin, and even entertain the notion that whatever fucked up trauma he has doesn’t mean that he’s incapable of love or _being_ loved. And he finally embraced the idea that maybe this adorable, kind super-nerd could be _the_ chance for him to have true happiness, only to lose him before he ever got his opportunity to be brave. 

When he woke up and they told him that Quentin was dead, something broke within him. To have finally regained control of his body only to find that his chance had slipped through his fingers, he’d never wanted to die as badly as he did then. 

The pain was somehow worse than if Margo’s ax had slammed into him a hundred times over. 

He never got to tell Quentin he loved him, to confess that he had been too afraid to give them a real chance. He never even got to say goodbye. 

And he can’t stop hating himself for it. 

It couldn’t have been real when he saw Quentin. He thought it was some drug-induced hallucination, fueled by magic for that _extra_ life-like effect. But then he spoke to him. Eliot  _touched_ him. He was real. 

And when Quentin disappeared it was like losing him all over again. 

Somehow he fucked it up again. That’s just what he does. 

Eliot needs to stop thinking about Quentin. But he sees his face every time he closes his eyes. He hears the way Quentin used to say his name. He can see them in his mind, limbs entwined, bodies wrapped together and _nothing_ hurts worse than remembering. 

He reaches into the drawer of the bedside table, pulls out a small worn bag and a needle tumbles out of it onto the bed. Nothing numbs him like heroin. He feels the malignant energy that courses through his veins, intense and far too strong. He needs it suffocated, smothered, and gone. 

He watches the poison bubble and hiss over flame. The needle slides easily into his skin. He gasps as a wave of calm washes over him. The effects are immediate. He feels so tired, but so  _normal_ again. As he closes his eyes, he can feel the powerful magic seep out of his finger tips, releasing a tension that had been trapped inside him. 

The drugs numb him physically, wonderfully so. He doesn’t feel pain. He doesn’t feel grief. For a short while, he’s no longer heartbroken. The world darkens and it all fades away. He feels himself drifting off to a mindless sleep. 

Then darkness. Peace. Maybe what Quentin felt when it was all over.

 And nothing.

 

_“Eliot. Eliot… Eliot?!”_

Eliot’s breath hitches weakly in his chest as he feels someone shaking him violently. Someone is saying his name. He chokes and gasps, eyes fluttering as adrenaline is jolted directly to his heart. He knows magic when he feels it. He makes a noise in his throat that he thinks sounds like a protest. 

He recognizes Chris’s panicked voice in the dark. 

_“Hey, Eliot? Eliot?! Look to me, sweetheart. I need you to look at me, okay? I need you to look at me.”_

Hands are touching his face but he can’t move, still trapped in a drug-induced haze. His throat is raw as he gasps for air, unable to form words. 

He feels himself being lifted and moved. 

Eliot’s head hums with static. He’s slumped against the man holding him, still repeating unintelligible words in his ear. He jumps as freezing cold water hits his naked, shivering body. His eyes snap open and he chokes on a surprised gasp. 

“I’m—I’m fine,” he rasps. “I didn’t—didn’t mean to—”  

Chris holds him tight as he shakes, pressed chest to his back. “I got you. I got you.” His voice is more gravel than words. “Damn it, Eliot, you’re getting worse.” 

Eliot’s awake. His mind is on fire, but he’s awake. He presses his wet cheek to Chris’s shoulder, closes his eyes as the cold water of the shower washes over them both. “It’s okay,” he mumbles. He’s dead weight in the other man’s arms. 

“It’s not fucking okay,” Chris growls. “You can’t keep doing this to yourself.”

Eliot weakly shakes his head. He hears the pain in the other man’s voice. It only makes him feel worse. His mind is fuzzy around the edges, but one thought rings clear. 

_Should have locked the door._

**Author's Note:**

> [x](http://winters-blue-children.tumblr.com)


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